Gov. Gavin Newsom to propose moving Department of Education to executive branch
Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to move the state Department of Education to the control of the executive branch as part of his spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year.
Newsom’s office teased the proposal in a release early Thursday morning, and said it was in line with recent recommendations from Policy Analysis for California Education, a Stanford research center.
A December PACE report suggested that moving the educational department under the governor’s authority would centralize authority over the state’s school systems and educational priorities.
The release proposed hiring a director appointed by the state board of education to oversee the education department. Currently, the State Superintendent is an elected position, and Newsom does not have the authority to change the position into an appointed one.
It was not immediately clear whether he would ask the legislature or voters to take action to do so, or if he would address the issue in his State of the State address Thursday.
The release also did not detail any fiscal impact that the change might have. The state currently faces a projected $18 billion budget shortfall; the governor is expected to release his spending plan on Friday.
Newsom’s office did not respond to follow up questions Wednesday evening.
In its release, Newsom’s office said the move would strengthen the State Superintendent role, citing the PACE report which characterized the superintendent’s office as a patchwork of “inefficiencies, ambiguities in roles and responsibilities, and obstacles to effective policy implementation.”
While the State Superintendent role is elected, the governor appoints members to the State Board of Education, subject to state senate approval. That board, which the State Superintendent chairs, is responsible for setting K-12 education policy in the state.
The PACE report suggested that the Superintendent job be restructured to become responsible for “evaluation and system accountability,” and Newsom’s office said the changes could be accomplished via statute and legislative action.
“A core issue at the heart of California’s problems of education governance is not simply that the (superintendent of public instruction) is elected but also that the SPI’s responsibilities are insufficiently defined and often overlap or conflict with the governor’s authority,” the PACE report read.
“Instead of addressing the underlying challenges in California’s dual-headed education system, state leaders have layered new roles and policies on top of an already fractured structure,” the report said. “This has produced an increasingly complex, multilayered governance apparatus, with overlapping leadership roles and responsibilities that various entities must navigate, often compounding rather than resolving problems of governance.”
California’s educational systems and lackluster student performance have become an issue in the race to succeed Newsom, who is termed out in November and will leave office early next year. The current State Superintendent, Democrat Tony Thurmond, is running to replace him.
“California’s education governance system could be characterized as a kludgeocracy: a patchwork of overlapping policies, agencies, and initiatives that have been layered over time without cohesive coordination, often resulting in inefficiencies and confusion,” the PACE report read.
Newsom’s office said the reforms had been suggested as far back as 1920, including in a 2002 state Master Plan for Education.
“California can no longer postpone reforms that have been recommended regularly for a century. So we are going to modernize the governance system by unifying the policymaking State Board with the Department of Education that implements those policies,” Newsom said in a statement. “These critical reforms will bring greater accountability, clarity, and coherence to how we serve our students and schools.”
This story was originally published January 8, 2026 at 6:00 AM.
